


The Stars in Your Skin

by sapphorror



Series: SebaCiel Kinkmas in July 2020 [2]
Category: Kuroshitsuji | Black Butler
Genre: ALWAYS DACRYPHILIA, Angst, Astronomy, Bathing/Washing, Biting, Blood, Blood Drinking, Chapter 37 (Kuroshitsuji), Circus Arc (Kuroshitsuji), Dacryphilia, Demon Sebastian Michaelis, Dissociation, During Canon, Female Pronouns for Grell Sutcliff, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Marking, Masochism, Mild Gore, Mildly Dubious Consent, Past Rape/Non-con, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Resolved Sexual Tension, Rough Sex, Sadism, Sebastian Michaelis Being An Asshole, Sebastian Michaelis's Casually Violent Internal Monologue, Smut, Trans Female Grell Sutcliff, Trauma, of a sort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-24
Updated: 2020-07-24
Packaged: 2021-03-05 06:14:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25489810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sapphorror/pseuds/sapphorror
Summary: After the confrontation at Baron Kelvin's manor, Sebastian wants his young master back in top condition, and Ciel wants his body to feel like his own again.As usual, the solution they come to is unorthodox.(Sebaciel Kinkmas in July, Days 16 & 17: Bath Time & Marking)
Relationships: Sebastian Michaelis & Grell Sutcliff, Sebastian Michaelis/Ciel Phantomhive
Series: SebaCiel Kinkmas in July 2020 [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1821430
Comments: 14
Kudos: 140





	The Stars in Your Skin

**Author's Note:**

> and here it is, a full week later than intended. god, this was an effort.
> 
> fun fact: my initial idea for ciel marking fic was actually him with grell (because cmon, look at those teeth). I only switched it to sebastian and formulated the idea for this fic specifically when I saw there was marking prompt for kinkmas. and that's why she gets to talk with sebastian about the stars.

The child had been coming back to himself in increments. 

Sebastian found it almost fascinating to watch, the ways in which Ciel crumbled. When they’d returned to the townhouse, soaked in blood and the ashes of Baron Kelvin’s manor, he hadn’t even made a game attempt at evading Soma’s embrace—just hung there in the Prince’s arms, limp as a doll. He’d gathered himself together by morning, of course, the enduring little thing, put together enough scattered pieces of himself to affect a thin facade, but Sebastian wouldn’t have had to be watching closely to see the way he faded, drained out of his own body the moment no human gazes were pinning him in place.

Fascinating, indeed. But only for a short while.

Sebastian had no reason to be growing impatient. It had only been a few days since he’d carried Ciel from Kelvin’s burning manor, and the revelations at Renbourn Workhouse had been just last afternoon. No time at all, and now that they were back on the estate Ciel was sure to recover quickly. The boy would never admit it, but familiarity soothed him—spending some days in his own home, being waited on by his bungling servants and keeping Prince Soma and Lady Elizabeth entertained, would be a curative. All he needed was time and a game to occupy his mind, and if Sebastian’s suspicions were correct, the latter would be quite forthcoming.

All the same, Sebastian couldn’t say he was fond of the waiting.

Briskly, Sebastian clipped his sleeve garters back in place and turned to the tub. To Ciel, submerged to his neck in clear water, so limp one could imagine he was hoping to drown. Not that Sebastian would let him.

Some, Sebastian knew, preferred their toys like this. Pretty porcelain dolls, empty and glass-eyed. Baron Kelvin had been such a one, and Sebastian took it as a point of pride to not share his proclivities.

Certainly, Sebastian enjoyed Ciel’s delicacy, enjoyed dressing him in the mornings and carrying him about and pushing him into position like a mannequin. He enjoyed manipulating him, like a puppet on strings—but only when he at least _pretended_ to fight back. The drifting, useless thing his master sometimes became was of no interest to Sebastian, not when hollowed-out humans were a dime a dozen.

That was one thing he could count on, though. No matter how many times one shattered his little master, he always picked himself up and came back for more.

“Young master,” Sebastian purred, pitching his voice like crushed velvet, “do sit up. You inhaling water would not make an enjoyable evening for either of us.”

“Mn. Shut up, you.” But he pushed himself up from the water, droplets rolling over bony shoulders.

_Pale_ shoulders, white as the porcelain they rested against. Thin and jutting—even more so than usual, if Nina’s measurements were to be trusted. Ciel was so _small,_ so frail and weak—that he’d been sickly since childhood should not have surprised Sebastian as much as it had. Not when Sebastian could observe every bone under paper-thin skin.

_Bones._ Taken from a child, and ground to powder—the secret ingredient to that circus doctor’s prosthetics, and Sebastian hadn’t been faking his appreciation. Ciel was a little older than most of the victims, but not too much, and the doctor had never clarified whether it actually had to be children’s bones or if that had merely been a choice of convenience. Sebastian was almost regretful he’d killed the man too soon to ask. Demons didn’t have keepsakes, but his master would make a lovely little china doll, all the same.

Sebastian soaked a cloth in the adjoining basin, lathered it in soap. Ciel didn’t track his movements, his eyes fixed firmly on some invisible point in space—when, exactly, had he become so trusting as to turn his back on his demon? 

Sebastian started at his shoulders, quivering like a baby bird’s wings. He imagined pressing down until the vessels in them burst, until his thumbs tore through skin and blood spilled. He wondered if the look on his master’s face would be one more of pain or surprise.

Soap suds rolled down Ciel’s clavicle to settle over a bruise. His pale bone china skin was littered with them, mottled yellow and purple and black. Constellations. Corvus flying over the plane of his hollow stomach, Pisces swimming around his hips. Saggita shooting a path straight to his heart. 

Most were fading, but still stark on Ciel’s bloodless doll’s skin. Sebastian’s little master had always bruised easily. These, from the stones at the audition and endless practices. Perhaps even a few from the scuffle at Baron Kelvin’s manor—the incident had not been handled cleanly, after all.

Ciel slid into the touch, eyes unfocused and drooping. He was tired, of course—even discounting the emotional toll of the last few weeks or the remnants of his illness, a visit from Miss Hopkins just had that effect. And he hadn’t been sleeping properly—not in the buzzing, working class hive of the circus, certainly not since the incident with Baron Kelvin, which had left him with nightmares more vicious than ever. He had been so soundly asleep, curled in the crook of the austere armchair much too big for him, Sebastian hadn’t even bothered shaking him awake. Simply wrapped him up once Elizabeth and Soma had retired and carried him to his waiting bath.

But even still. Wasn’t it interesting, how every muscle in the boy’s body would tense up at the lightest brush of his fiance’s fingers, but a demon’s hands washing his neck lulled him to sleep?

Sebastian skimmed up to cup Ciel’s jaw, and the little noise he made, somewhere between a breath and a whine, was like birdsong. Sebastian thumbed along the space just under his ear, over a dark splotch of purple that peeked out from even Ciel’s highest collars, though the fall of his hair kept it partially obscured. Inconvenient, but pleasing. Sebastian pressed down.

The first indication Ciel gave that he even noticed was a low, gurgling whimper, then a bit of weak squirming—trying to tilt his head away, and Sebastian didn’t even need to tighten his grip to keep him in place. His thumb rubbed slow circles. From a demon, it could barely be considered a tap.

Finally, Ciel thrashed up, sending an arc of water to the tiles, hand slapping down on Sebastian’s wrist as if that would ever make a difference. His eyes weren’t drooping anymore, a glare as wide and shining as the day Sebastian had marked one as his own—and _oh,_ if this wasn’t his favorite part, of baths and mornings and evenings, the brief moments when Sebastian got to see his own gleaming brand of ownership. His gloves were soaked through, translucent with damp, and the matching black scar of his own mark showed through. It itched, as Ciel’s eye gleamed with borrowed power, and he hissed through clenched teeth, “ _Stop. That._ ”

Well. _That_ made a difference.

“My apologies, young master. How careless of me.” Sebastian’s hand dropped back to Ciel’s shoulder, and Sebastian was polite enough not to comment on Ciel’s shaky sigh of relief. “If you would sit up for me, so I can wash your back.”

And Ciel did, gripping the rim of the tub to pull himself up. But he was alert now, wary. Good.

Sebastian washed his back gently, methodically. Ran the cloth over sharp little shoulders that would’ve looked beautiful torn into wings, and the curve of his spine, each vertebrae so clearly defined Sebastian longed to pluck them out. Pale skin covering tense, quivering muscle, with bruises that clustered thickest at the base of his spine. The familiar snarl of scar tissue, just below his shoulder blade, that had caused such a hassle today— _ah._ Yes, that was something, wasn’t it?

“Young master.” Sebastian snapped the cloth taut, wringing a cascade of soapy water out over Ciel’s shoulders. “I do apologize for all the excitement today. You’re still recovering, and I’m not certain you should even be entertaining Lady Elizabeth in your current state. I had _hoped_ the staff would be able to handle any difficulties without significant property damage, but evidently, that was wishful thinking.”

“Lizzie will only be here a few days longer, and I’m not sick,” Ciel muttered distantly. “Anyway, you repaired it in a day, so it’s hardly an issue. Call it even.”

“Hm. Yes. Quite a day I had, clearing rubble, reconstructing a collapsed wing, and rushing off to assist your little charade with Miss Hopkins. You are ever determined to get your soul’s worth out of the contract.”

Ciel huffed a breath that almost could have been laughter.

“Though I do have one question.”

Under his hands, Ciel went stiff as iron. Sebastian thumbed gently over the line of his trapezius as he gritted out, “Ask it, then.”

“Thank you, young master,” Sebastian purred, self-satisfied as a cat. “Merely, you were so very anxious at the thought of Lady Elizabeth seeing your brand. It surprised me.” He rubbed into the meat of Ciel’s shoulder, and his master’s fragile muscles had the yield of a brick wall. “I know you’ve never been forthcoming about the events leading up to our meeting, but your family _is_ aware you went through a trauma that left you physically and mentally scarred, and I highly doubt a Marquess’s daughter has comprehensive knowledge of the iconography of obsolete Satanic cults, if that’s what you were worried about.” He drew his fingers over the sharp curve of Ciel’s shoulder blade, trailing a line of soapy froth. “Your eye, I can understand, there’s very little explaining _that,_ and _yet_. You’ve never shown nearly the degree of paranoia regarding the Faustian Contract that you did today, over a reveal that would’ve induced little more than unsurprised pity.” Down, and his fingertips brushed the pinkened outer circle of the brand.

Ciel recoiled, sending water sloshing out onto the tiles, as if the touch of Sebastian’s fingers was the hot iron all over again. “If you didn’t understand, then why did you help me? I never ordered you to cover the brand. I never even called you to the room.”

“It seemed rather important to you, so I played along.”

“You have _never_ just ‘played along!’” Ciel hissed, with enough venom and truth in it to make Sebastian grin.

“You think so poorly of me.” Sebastian slung the cloth over the rim of the tub with an audible _slap!_ and oh, if the way Ciel flinched back from it wasn’t delicious. “It’s a simple question.”

He leaned in, bracing his elbows on the bath’s edge, fingers dipping into the water and sending out slow-moving ripples. It was terribly unprofessional, _leering,_ not up to his aesthetic at all. But there was nothing doll-like about Ciel now, as he inched back to the other side of the tub, as if that’d make him any safer, and his magic eyes were wide and vibrant and shimmering, eaten up by pupil and pulsing contract, all Sebastian’s. There was a pleasure to be had, certainly, in how Sebastian’s young master trusted him, threw himself into the waiting arms of a demon with an _adorable_ faith he would come out whole, but there was an ecstasy that tugged on the deepest, most inhuman parts of him when the boy remembered what he was, what he always would be—a predator, and Ciel his willing prey.

Sometimes, just sometimes, it was worth forgoing aesthetic for a little bit of fun.

“What was it, little master? Hm? Blind panic, perhaps. You simply didn’t think. Quite a fool you made out of yourself, all that noise over nothing, but a deeply human reaction, nevertheless.”

Ciel hit the opposite end of the tub, back pressed to cool porcelain. His shoulders were shaking, but something in his eyes softened, muscles minutely untensing. Sebastian licked over his teeth, sharpened to points.

“But no, young master, that’s not it at all, is it?”

The little choked noise Ciel made was cute as a kitten, and just as fragile. Sebastian salivated.

“Shame, then. And fear.” Sebastian pushed up from the tub, stood to his full height, and he _knew_ that he was slipping, that shadows were gathering just a little too dense in the corners, encroaching a little too far on the borders of the candlelight, twisting into shapes they shouldn’t. “Did you, perhaps, feel that if she saw, she would see everything _else_ you went through? Look straight into that rare little soul of yours and know all your secrets? You were terribly abused, of course—the torture you were put through was exceptional, even by my standards. Natural that you would not want your sweet, loving fiance, who adores you so, to know anything of that month, of the way I found you filthy and broken and bloody, used in ways not fit for a dog.”

“S-Se— Seb— Sebas—” And there his little master was, trying to shut him up, but his voice was weak as a broken flute, whatever thoughts he was having too scattered and broken to come as more than stuttering fragments. Once, at Kelvin’s manor, Sebastian had coaxed him out of this same state; he had little interest in doing it a second time.

“Or,’ Sebastian took a step forward, then another—stalking, as surely as any large fanged thing did its prospective meal, “were you afraid, not of what she’d see, but how it’d make you feel? That you’d be transported back there, in mind if not body? No more _Earl Phantomhive,_ just a hurt, helpless, crying child. I suppose such worries would be more salient than ever, considering recent events.” Sebastian reached Ciel’s side, the precious little thing so curled into himself he practically disappeared under the water, as if he’d rather drown than face the towering darkness that was his demon—it’d be wise of him, if he did. “Ah, maybe I’m on the right track. It’s a slave’s brand, after all. You don’t need to return there in any capacity to know your body is owned. For Lady Elizabeth to know it.” Sebastian crouched down, low enough his knees touched the tiles and his trousers soaked up damp, breathing over Ciel’s neck. His voice rolled, light, saccharine, the same one he used to serve Ciel sweets. “Which is it, my lord? Or is there enough room in your tangled little head for all of them?”

“What, what the _hell_ could you know—”

And this, _this_ was what it was for. The fear, the helpless anger, the froth of humiliation and self-hate—Ciel Phantomhive’s soul _glowing,_ so bright Sebastian could distinguish every writhing, thumping, scarred-over layer. Strong and sharp and multifaceted as a carpet of broken diamonds. Sebastian had not eaten a thing for three years now, and he was _starving,_ more so than he’d ever let show, and just the sight of the thing sent him so insane with mindless, demonic hunger that there was a temptation to throw it all away and become one of the _gluttonous beasts_ he so reviled—but even if it was decades more before he got to taste his little lord’s soul, it was these moments that promised him it’d be worth every second.

Sebastian smiled, sweet, and ducked his head down, until he’d merely have to unhinge his jaw to tear Ciel’s throat open with his teeth. “I know, little master, that you were lying when you told me the only thing that brand makes you feel is rage _._ ”

“ _Shut up._ ” And there it was, finally—that growling snap of teeth, the Watchdog biting back as cornered animals always did. “Just… stop talking, Sebastian. It was simpler if Lizzie didn’t see the brand, that’s all. We’re done here. I’m going to bed.” He jerked himself up from the tub, sending water splashing over the sides as he tried to get to his feet, to flee without touching Sebastian. It was an unsteady lurch, from a boy with pitiable coordination on a good day, and he tipped over before he’d even straightened his knees. Sebastian caught him, firm around the shoulders, before he managed to fall over the tub’s rim and crack his skull on wet tiles.

Ciel whimpered like he was somewhere else entirely.

Sebastian swept him up from the tub, paying no heed to his initial attempt to squirm away, or the way he went stiff and frozen as a corpse once he was in Sebastian’s arms, fists curling into his shirt and locking in rigor mortis. Sat him down, still dripping water, on the bathside bench. Pried the fingers from his shirt, one by one, and went to fetch a towel.

Sebastian came back wearing a fresh set of gloves and carrying the softest towel he had to offer. Ciel had calmed, at least insomuch as he no longer resembled a cadaver—his feet swinging over the tiles, one arm wrapped protectively around his chest. Sebastian pretended not to notice the fingertips splayed across his ribs to worry at the edge of his brand.

“If you’d allow me to dry you, sir.”

“Mn,” Ciel mumbled, which was likely the closest to consent Sebastian would get. He dropped his arm to his side, and Sebastian began towelling him with brisk, clinical movements. This time, he didn’t shy away from the touch, or freeze, or seem to notice very much at all. “Sebastian.”

Sebastian shifted the towel back to get a glance at Ciel’s face. “Yes, young master?”

Ciel wasn’t looking at him though—his pretty eyes staring fixedly at a point on the floor. “Finish this, then leave. And don’t come back until morning, not even if I call for you.”

Sebastian raised a brow. “You know I can’t do that, my lord.”

Ciel’s only reaction was a thin exhalation. “Just leave, then. I won’t call, anyway.”

“Of course.”

And his young master had slipped away again. Sebastian had pushed a little too hard, and now Ciel had retreated inside his own head, wrapped up in gauze and cobwebs. Like he always did. Sebastian wondered what it was like inside that skull, whether the place Ciel ran to was more refuge or prison. Contract or no, he couldn’t read Ciel’s mind, not directly—though, he’d always been careful to keep the boy wondering on that. Natural, that Ciel would be the first contractor to make Sebastian consider that any great limitation.

It didn’t matter. Ciel would recover—tomorrow morning, and if not, the day after. If not the day after, then next week.

That was the thing about his little master, after all. He _always_ came back for more.

“I’ll need to mop the tiles first, to prevent mold.”

“Fine.”

“I’ll be as unobtrusive as possible, my lord.”

“Mhm.”

Sebastian pulled back, tossing the damp towel over its rack. “I assure you it’ll be quick, regardless. I have extra work to take care of tonight.”

A brief spark of interest flickered in his master’s eyes. “What is it?”

“Just resolving a small detail I noticed while repairing the manor. Nothing you need concern yourself with.” Sebastian retrieved Ciel’s nightshirt from its hook, held it open for his master to step into. “Merely the work of a Phantomhive servant.”

“Mm.” And Ciel was gone again, eyes vacant.

Naturally.

~~

While Sebastian had been repairing the manor, he’d taken the extra time to replant the gardens with winter-blooming flowers—necessary, since Finny had let nearly everything wilt in his absence, but a sign of excellency all the same, to see the grounds spilling over with vibrant greens and reds and purples in the dead of winter. Still, not even Sebastian could do much about the thick veil of frost over every stone and leaf, and it had a leeching effect on the manor grounds, as if the whole place was fading to black and white.

There was a bite to the air that even Sebastian was cognizant of, though he didn’t particularly mind it, aside from making a mental note to double-check the banking of the fire when he returned to Ciel’s room. He strode down the narrow path to the glasshouse, heedless of the ice slicking the stones. The stars shone down, a million shining sword points in a black abyss. Glass and frost alike gleamed with their light.

Mm _._ The work of a Phantomhive servant indeed.

Sebastian came to a stop by the little stone bench facing the glasshouse, now cobbled over with ice. “Grell Sutcliff, I rather believe you can come out now.”

Surely enough, a blur of garish red emerged from behind the peak of the glasshouse and leapt down to the ground, landing smoothly at the path’s end. Shame. Sebastian had hoped she’d break her ankle.

Sebastian’s dislike of reapers wasn’t anything personal. In some respects, he even admired them—their skillful handling of souls and the way they moved through parallel realities like water, their unending dedication to their work and their luminescent green eyes which, while limited in sight, reminded Sebastian of a cat’s. But each and every reaper was merely a cog in a machine, a machine with which Sebastian had a quite mutual loathing. Their job was to collect and categorize souls, while it was his nature to devour them—that put them inherently at odds. And reapers could be _such_ trouble when they wanted to be.

They were as interesting as they were off-putting. He had to admit the system had an entertaining cruelty to it—end your own life, spend an eternity taking others—but there was no convoluted bureaucracy or divine transformation that could change one simple fact: humans weren’t _meant_ to live eons, their psyches hadn’t been built for it. They certainly weren’t meant to spend those eons sentencing their fellow man to death after death after death. There was no stability to a Reaper’s existence, not the way there was to a demon’s, creatures that had been designed to withstand eternity from the start. Which, Sebastian supposed, was how you ended up with so many stories along the lines of ‘screaming red headache grows obsessed with human woman and cuts a gory path through London in orgiastic pursual of blood and slaughter.’ 

As for his dislike of _Grell…_ well. She was merely a bright crimson irritation.

She didn’t look terribly different from the last time Sebastian had seen her—right down to her hideous red coat and the chainsaw hoisted over her shoulder. She was holding it a little tighter this time—apparently, she wouldn’t make the same mistake twice. She wasn’t half as stupid as she played at being, though Sebastian would never do her the service of saying so.

“Oh, _Bassy!_ ” She sang, performing a theatrical twirl that sent the ends of her coat flaring. “You’ve caught me. Whatever shall you do to me now?” 

“Ask that you not skulk around the manor at midnight.” Sebastian said, casting her a forbidding look. “Or, ideally, at all. Honestly, I had been hoping Dispatch would dispose of you.”

Grell bounded forward, and in three leaps she was at his side, as buzzing and obnoxious as a scarlet bumblebee. “Now, now, Bassy! First time offense~! Just a suspension, and I was _such_ a good girl they even let me off early! So, of course I came to see you.”

Sebastian suppressed a sigh. “Of course.”

“Ah, I missed you so, my Sebastian darling.” Another spin, and she dropped down to the stone bench, apparently uncaring about the thick covering of ice. “Suspension was a terrible bore. How _have_ you been? You and that little boy of yours.”

“I was _quite_ serious about asking you to leave. You could at least do the courtesy of calling during daylight hours.” Sebastian clicked his tongue, checking his pocket watch with a flick of his wrist. “ _Some_ of us are busy.”

“Oh, live a little, Bassy,” she laughed, and her eyes trailed up to sky. “Look. You can see Perseus rushing to save Andromeda from Cetus.” Sebastian followed the trajectory her arm, and sure enough, there they were—a mythic battle rendered in dying light. “I rather think you’d make a dashing Perseus—do you think I could pull off the damsel in distress? Or is that brat of yours the princess, and I’m the fearsome monster you’ve come to slay?”

“I’d style you more as Queen Cassiopeia, punished for her vanity and cursed to hang upside down for half the year.” Sebastian gestured a little higher in the sky, to her tiny, jagged line of stars. “Nobody’s rescued her, as far as I know. And if I must choose, I think I’d much rather be Cetus—Perseus never devoured his princess, after all.”

“Neither did Cetus,” Grell pointed out. “At least Perseus got the chance to devour her in _other_ ways.”

“Crass.”

“Always.” Grell grinned at him with her mouthful of shark’s teeth. “Come now, Bassy. You pick one.”

Sebastian checked his watch again—time to spare. An utterly pointless exercise, picking stars—but it had been a long time since Sebastian had done anything pointless, and there were worse ways to waste a few minutes. So he pointed up at the sky and said, “Gemini. The twins.”

“ _Ugh,_ ” Grell gagged. “Of _course._ Could you be any more predictable?”

“I suppose they are rather relevant to my current affairs, aren’t they? Look at how they’re pressed together, so close they might as well be a single entity—”

“Pick something _else.”_

Sebastian smiled wickedly. “Very well. Over there. The hunter, Orion, and his two dogs, Canis Major and Canis Minor. And there, Lepus, the hare they chase. Ah, and there, in Canis Major, there’s Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky. Do you find it pretty?”

Grell propped her chin on her hand. “Sure.”

“I find it fascinating. An endless, nightly chase. Orion and his hounds run after the hare, and in the shadows, Scorpius lurks, waiting for its chance to sting Orion’s heel. Remind you of anything?”

“With how one-track you are, my bet’s on the brat.”

“I was thinking of humanity as whole, but I suppose he is quite an apt microcosm, isn’t he?” Sebastian tapped his lips in thought. “He’s Orion and the hare both, chasing himself in circles, ignoring the danger that waits just behind the horizon. The question that remains is whether I’m one of the loyal hounds at his heels, or Scorpius.”

“I guess some questions just aren’t meant to be answered,” Grell yawned, unimpressed. She jerked her chin at another constellation. “What about that one there, since you know so much? Monoceros, the unicorn. It’s right next to them.”

“Oh, I’m afraid that one has nothing to do with anything. Its creation was actually quite recent—named in 1612, I believe?”

“Shame. It’d liven things up.”

“I quite agree. A beautiful, rare thing, caged on either side by snarling dogs. One can only imagine it’s about to be torn apart.”

Grell shot him a hard look. “Joykill.”

“Oh, always,” Sebastian purred, and grinned at her with a mouthful of sharp canines.

Grell rolled her eyes and hopped to her feet atop the bench, her attention drawing back to the stars. “Fine, my turn. Let’s see.”

“Hm. Draco?”

“No.”

“Maybe lynx, then? It’s just there—it has your eyes.”

“Stop picking for me! Just give me a minute.” She paced the length of the seat, a _one-two-three_ tap of her heels, scanning the endless carpet of sky with a furrow between her brows that reminded Sebastian of Ciel, when he didn’t know what move to make in a game. Finally, she pointed, nearly straight out towards the horizon line. “There.”

Sebastian followed her arm, until his eyes settled on her prize—a line of stars only barely visible in the sky. “Eridanus.”

“The river of the stars. You can’t even see all of it, not here—see, it keeps going, beyond the horizon line.”

“Is that why you like it, then? Because it is large and dominates the night sky?”

“Well, obviously.” Grell sat down atop the bench’s backrest, settling her death scythe over her lap. “But you’re not the only one who can find stars—what was the word you used— _fascinating,_ Bassy. It’s not _just_ a river—it’s the path of flames Phaethon carved when he took his daddy’s sun chariot for a joyride. He was convinced he could steer it, but, obviously, he couldn’t. Or maybe he could, and he just set everything on fire for fun.” She let loose a laugh, a long, giggling crow off-putting enough to put the cackle of a demon to shame. “Then Zeus struck him out of the sky with a lightning bolt, and Phaethon fell from the chariot and into his own river of fire. He was quite dead—isn’t it funny, how Greek godlings are only immortal when its convenient—and his father was heartbroken. But Zeus did as he must to keep order.”

“Ah. I’m beginning to see why you’re so fixated.” Sebastian glanced at her sidelong, almost conspiratorial. “I do feel the Greeks got one thing wrong, though.”

“Oh?”

“Well, that’s just the thing about human hubris. The Greeks were preoccupied with its consequences, but they didn’t quite understand it.” Sebastian chuckled darkly. “You see, truly arrogant humans don’t merely go down in flames. They’re resilient. They rise from their own ashes, all the more prideful for being defeated. That Phaethon didn’t crawl from that river and believe himself capable of taking vengeance on Zeus is quite the flaw in their storytelling.”

“Isn’t that just the Phoenix?” Grell muttered with a roll of her eyes. “Really, Bassy, you play up the strong and stoic act, but you’re overdramatic even by _my_ standards _._ Though I suppose you would know all about emerging from fire.”

“I do have some experience, yes.”

“On which note,” Grell hefted her chainsaw from her lap, held it in the air for one suspended moment before she let her arm drop, the serrated blades colliding with the seat hard enough to crack the ice, “you still haven’t answered my question, Sebastian darling.”

“And which question would that be?”

“About how you’ve _been!_ ” she exclaimed. “You and that boy of yours! I took this mission all by myself just to see you, and you weren’t even _here!_ It’s very rude to stand a lady up, you know.”

“It can hardly be considered standing you up when you’ve been stalking us,” Sebastian remarked drily. “The young master had business in London, as he not infrequently does.”

“Oh, yes, the _circus._ I know all about that. Are you curious how, Bassy?”

“Not at all.”

“Well, I never.” Grell placed a put upon hand to her chest, fluttering her false eyelashes. “I _was_ the one cataloguing all those circus freaks, you know. The ones here, anyway. Such sad little lives. You made _quite_ the feature in their Cinematic Records.” She pantomimed a heartbroken sniffle. “I was _distraught_ to see what you did with that beast-tamer girl, but it was purely practical, wasn’t it, Bassy? You were thinking of me the whole time.”

Sebastian clicked his tongue. “Hardly.”

“Of course you were.” In a movement, Grell pushed herself from the bench, flying through the air and landing smoothly back on the stone path. “Those Records did tell quite the story, incomplete as they were. You and Will—I can’t _believe_ he didn’t tell me where you were—made such dashing acrobats, and even I can admit the Phantomhive boy’s fumbling was cute. Some of his knife-tricks were even half-decent.” She paced around the garden, off the trail and around the flowering bushes, gesticulating each sentence with her unburdened arm. “But you were there to put an end to that nasty piece of work, Baron Kelvin, weren’t you, not put on a show. Ah, if only I’d known where you were—I saw his intentions in their memories, you know, so… _artfully_ cruel. I can only imagine how you and the boy handled it.” She came to a stop, just in front of Sebastian. Smiled with all her teeth and clasped her hands behind her back, chainsaw and all. “How _is_ he holding up, hm? I took a look at his files while I was suspended—it must’ve done quite the number on him. I bet you have your hands very full.”

Sebastian regarded her, long and cold. She beamed back, bespectacled cat-eyes reflecting moonlight.

“I wouldn’t say so, no.” He drew each word out like a drip of honey, like thick molasses or clotted blood. “Not anymore than usual, at least. I find things like this actually leave him quite… placid.” Sebastian’s lips twisted into a smile. “Your interest in him is quite intriguing, though.”

“Oh, _please,_ ” she scoffed. “I have no interest in little boys, Sebastian darling—that’s all you. It just so happens he comes with the Bassy package, and I have _some_ manners.”

“Oh, I have no doubt,” Sebastian replied, with as much dripping condescension as he could manage. Grell tossed her hair and stormed back off towards the glasshouse with an irritated click of her teeth. “Oh, and Grell? I must say, that coat is lovely.”

Halfway down the icy stone path, Grell froze.

“I always wondered where Madame Red got it from—it’s an unusual cut, for this era at least. Just enough to be striking.” Sebastian started after her, deceptively casual—a shadow of a butler, crossing the garden to serve his guest. “She’d always been eccentric in her fashion choices, so I assumed she’d just had it commissioned, but that wasn’t it at all, was it? How very nice of you, to shower her in gifts between cutting up prostitutes.

“Of course, that you stripped it from her bloody corpse casts things in a rather different light. Was it _that_ expensive?” He stilled, a looming presence at Grell’s back, close enough that she could surely feel his breath on her neck; she didn’t shift a muscle. “And you became so infatuated with me, after just one meeting, that you show up here as soon as you’re released, asking after me and my master. Such idiosyncrasies you have, wearing a dead woman’s coat and following her nephew and his butler around.”

He leaned in, until he was so near that her hair quavered with his exhalation.

“If one didn’t know better, they might think you _regretted_ slaughtering a twelve-year-old boy’s aunt right in front of his face.”

Grell jerked away, and her face was twisted, her footing shaky for the first time as she stumbled back to the glasshouse. “Don’t be _ridiculous,_ ” she hissed, and oh, if the snarl in her voice wasn’t _just_ like his young master.

Sebastian smiled his emptiest smiled and dipped his head. “In any case, Grell Sutcliff, I wouldn’t worry for him. Like I said, arrogant humans are resilient, and there is no one more arrogant than my little master.” He pulled out his pocketwatch, flicked it open. “Ah, and I’m nearly out of time. Do show yourself out—my lord will be needing me.”

~~

The darkness of Ciel’s room was suffocating; an oppressive black pit that swallowed even Sebastian in shadow. The heavy draperies were drawn over the windows, blocking out the starlight that had outside been so dazzling. The canopy around Ciel’s bed was drawn tight too, though Sebastian knew he had not left it that way.

Ciel had, of course, called, just as they both knew he would—exactly on schedule, at that. It hadn’t been a loud cry, not something that would wake the servants or alert Grell outside, or even disturb the rats. Just one wobbling whimper, sobbed into a pillow, so soft it had been barely been a breath. Even Sebastian might’ve missed it out in the gardens, had he not been listening, though it wouldn’t have mattered. The name Ciel had bound him under called to him in a way that had nothing to do with hearing.

Sebastian approached the bedside and gently drew back the canopy, revealing exactly what he’d expected—his little master, huddled in the dark, shivering in his nest of blankets. Proud little face wet with tears. Sebastian sighed and reached for the candelabra on the bedside table.

“D, d-don’t, _don’t._ ” The lump of blankets that was, in theory, his young master pushed itself up, a head slowly emerging from the thick duvet. Sebastian tried to gauge his lucidity—Ciel’s awareness during his night terrors varied drastically, and the night they’d returned from Baron Kelvin’s manor he’d been near inconsolable; all Sebastian had been able to do was stay by his side til morning light. “ _Don’t_ light any candles. Anything. Keep it dark.”

Well, he was at least lucid enough to remember Sebastian was a thing he could order, which was a marked improvement. It was hard to pin down beyond that though, with the way the boy seemed lost in his own eyes, lower lip quivering. And the command…

For as long as Sebastian had known him, Ciel had been afraid of the dark. He’d never admit it, of course, but he didn’t need to—Sebastian saw the way he squeezed his eyes shut at bedtime like he was trying to fall asleep before it became unbearable, and the way he’d shake after a nightmare right until Sebastian lit a candle. One could hardly blame him—Sebastian _was_ a creature of the dark, after all, a thing of writhing shadow, and Ciel knew to fear him as much as he took comfort in his presence. The edges of his fear had dulled over the years, and when Ciel truly couldn’t stand it he’d call Sebastian in and have him wait in the shadows, and that seemed to calm him, at least enough to sleep. But he had never stopped being scared.

Yet here he was, demanding Sebastian _not_ turn on the lights.

Sebastian set the candelabra down carefully and waited.

“‘m not—” Ciel swallowed. “I’m not in the cage anymore.” He made a thick, twisted sound that could almost be called a laugh. “Right, Sebastian? I’m not in the cage.”

“No, young master,” Sebastian murmured. “No, you are not.”

“So there’s nothing to be afraid of.” And Sebastian had to admire the conviction he said it with, even as terror choked his voice. “I’m _not_ afraid.”

“Oh, my lord.” Sebastian shook his head, voice dripping false sympathy. “We both know that’s not true.”

Ciel sucked in sharp breath, but he didn’t bite back, even weakly—and that was the surest sign of all Sebastian was right.

Sebastian knelt down, until he was level with the quivering, blanketed form on the bed. Reached out as if to a spooked animal and pushed the duvet back. Ciel whimpered, and Sebastian stroked his sweat-dampened hair. It was an obscene gesture of intimacy, a crossing of every boundary Ciel put up between them during the day—but this would not be the first time he’d allowed things he otherwise wouldn’t have from his servant, wrapped in the sticky remnants of a nightmare.

His master’s throat worked as Sebastian pushed his hair from his eyes, the Faustian contract glowing ever so subtly in the choking dark. “Sebastian.”

“Yes, my lord?”

“ _Mark_ me.” Ciel’s hand reached up and curled around Sebastian’s, little, breakable fingers squeezing his—not in protest, or even in fear. “Make my body feel like _mine_ again.”

Around Ciel, the darkness coagulated, pressed in on the shaking little thing’s edges. The terror coming off him was palpable, his shoulders quivering, his bone-white knuckles curled tight in the duvet, but his lips were pressed together and his eyes shone with the same light they did on a difficult case, when he spoke of revenge—an infallible willingness to go through with it, whether or not it’d destroy him. The Faustian contract glimmered faintly; Sebastian licked his lips. “Young master, I don’t—”

“You were _right,_ ” Ciel spat, sharp as knives, the words tumbling over each other like rusted factory machinery—his entire form shook with pain and rage, and Sebastian could see the gleam of tears gathering in the corners of those wide, hopeless eyes. “You were right, you damn demon! When I thought Lizzie was going to see the brand, I panicked. I would have rathered she caught me at Druitt’s party—hell, I would rather she found out who I am and what you are then ever, _ever_ see any mark of what was done to me. I was afraid and ashamed and I didn’t want any of my filth to touch her. They made me their _thing,_ Sebastian, and as long as I have their brand, as long as I obsess over vengeance like a rabid dog, I still am. I’m not in the cage anymore, but I _don’t need to be._ ” Ciel sucked in a breath, so sudden and sharp and ragged Sebastian was nearly sure he’d start coughing again. “So mark me _._ You did it before. You burned yourself into my soul and gave me power. Now _do it again._ ”

“Oh. Oh, I _see._ Do steady your breathing, young master.” Sebastian huffed a laugh, a dry chuckle that was barely even falsified—his little master always did manage to come up with such interesting developments. Ciel’s chest heaved, and he looked like he wanted to whip Sebastian bloody, then sob into his tailcoat. “I’m afraid I cannot do that, young master. There is nothing I want from you save your soul, and that already belongs to me. A second contract is out of the question.”

“I didn’t mean a second contract,” Ciel breathed out shakily. “ _They_ did the job just fine with an earthly brand, after all. You’re a vicious creature, and I know you must be desperate to tear into me by now. Figure something out.”

“Oh my.” And if this wasn’t interesting indeed. Ciel, prickly, idiotic, little Ciel, offering Sebastian his body on silk sheets, begging a demon to carve into him. There was a certain cleverness to it, Sebastian had to admit—overwriting old scars with new brutality. “I am ever your obedient servant, my lord, but you do understand that you are requesting I assault you.

“It isn’t a request,” Ciel snapped, audacious as ever; his petulant master was at home like this, giving orders, negotiating parameters. “Don’t do anything that’ll leave me bedridden tomorrow, or that I can’t hide. Obviously, this isn’t an opportunity to kill or cripple me. And not—” Ciel faltered, tore his eyes away, “not a _literal_ brand. Nothing that involves burning or fire. I don’t want to be able to see myself while we do this. Beyond that, I give you leave to be as much a beast as you desire.”

Sebastian considered it. It was tantalizing, certainly—Ciel was such a small, delicate thing, fragile as fine porcelain, and though Sebastian was bound by contract to protect him, it would always be a demon’s nature to break small, delicate things. And now Ciel was baring his neck, _telling_ Sebastian to tear him to pieces. To be as cruel and vicious as he desired, so long as the pain was thorough enough to make Ciel forget the brand. And he certainly did desire. Sebastian might have considered himself refined, but that did not mean he could not be bestial, when he so wished.

Ciel looked delectable, like this—broken down and vulnerable, quivering within a bundle of sheets. Tears he was too proud to let spill gathering fat and heavy along his eyelashes. Running headlong into his own destruction, as he always did. The glow of his soul was blinding in the room’s black, a shimmering corona of colors no human would ever perceive—need and fear and hate and desire, burning so bright it would only be a matter of time until they burnt _out._ The meal of lifetime, packaged in the body of one breakable little boy.

And Sebastian was so very, _very_ hungry.

“Just to ensure I understand, my lord—you wish for me to hurt you, intentionally, and leave some sort of physical evidence of it behind in hopes that it’ll give you a sense of empowerment?”

“Yes.”

“And I have leave to do whatever I feel will best achieve this, no matter how much pain it causes you, as long as it does not leave you indisposed tomorrow and involves no fire?”

“ _Yes._ ”

“You’re certain?”

“ _Yes!_ ” And there it was, the frustrated hitch in Ciel’s voice, tears as clear as holy water spilling down his cheeks. “Yes, you damn demon, just—”

“Understood, my lord,” Sebastian purred, and caught Ciel’s wrist before he could wipe his tears away. Stood with the grace of a shadow and took Ciel’s chin in hand, gently tilting his head up the same way he might to wash the boy’s face. Smiled, reassuring as a starved panther, and licked the drips of salt from Ciel’s cheek.

Ciel’s tears didn’t taste of holy water at all. They tasted, instead, of the Underworld’s five rivers—the miserable, weeping filth of the Cocytus, and the Phlegethon’s seething fires; the sweetly numbing milk of the Lethe, and the Acheron’s pain-drenched blood wine; and the indescribable flavor of the Styx, heavy with dead souls and hate, which bound those that swore upon it in inescapable oath and stole the voices of all who drank. Layered over top of each other in a dizzying, ecstatic concoction that was only the smallest taste of his young master’s soul.

Ciel recoiled, fingers twisting into Sebastian’s coat and breath pitching to a high, rapid wheeze. And who could blame him? The breach of etiquette was astounding, Sebastian’s disregard for his own aesthetics nigh unforgivable. It was disgusting and animalistic and possessive, and Ciel didn’t utter a word of complaint, because that was _exactly_ what he had asked for.

When Sebastian pulled away, it was with reluctance—being so molested only made his little master cry harder, and Sebastian could have lapped up those sweet soul tears for an eternity. But he had been given an order, and what kind of butler would he be if he did not follow it through?

Ciel shook as Sebastian pushed the duvet from his shoulders, and he clung to Sebastian’s coat until Sebastian pried his hands off finger by finger. He clenched his fists in the bedspread, instead, as Sebastian undid the buttons of his nightshirt with slow precision. Slipped it off and hung it up, as if it was just another morning dressing.

Even in the dark, Ciel had his eyes squeezed shut—he was so desperate not to see what Sebastian would do to him, to avoid his own naked and soon-to-be bloodied body. There was something charming about it, that he’d rather be abused in the dark, if it meant he could exist just a little less. 

A nasty habit, of course, but Sebastian had indefinite time to break him of it.

Sebastian took his time stripping off his tailcoat, rolling up his sleeves. Pulling his gloves off and leaving them neatly folded on the bedside table, because there was no reason to stain good cotton, and when he dug into Ciel’s skin he wanted it to be with bare hands.

By the time Sebastian approached the bed, the building anticipation had Ciel quaking, or perhaps that was just the bite of winter in the air—though Sebastian very much doubted it. When Sebastian’s hands settled on him, he yelped like a kicked dog and huddled further.

Sebastian maneuvered him gently onto his stomach and silently passed him a pillow to squeeze, which he did, quickly enough to make Sebastian chuckle. There was novelty in touching Ciel like this—Sebastian was so very rarely without his gloves, and even on the occasions it’d been necessitated he touch Ciel without them, Ciel had always been fully dressed. And though he might’ve seen Ciel stripped down every morning and evening, been the one to bathe his naked body mere hours ago, having him bent over and splayed under his bare hands, every inch of skin given over completely for Sebastian to do with as he wished, cast things in a rather different light.

Generally speaking, Sebastian was not terribly interested in human bodies independent of their souls—it was the gleaming, entangled masses within them that made humans so entertaining, not the fragile mortal shells they resided in. That wasn’t to say he couldn’t find fascination in bodies too, however, so long as the soul they contained was intricate enough to earn his fixation. A box, after all, could be pretty, even if it what was _in_ the box was the true prize.

And Ciel’s body was a pretty little box indeed. For all his soul was glowing and tenacious, Ciel’s body was slight and breakable, a wisp Sebastian would hardly have needed to breathe on to knock over, sharp little skeleton stuck in a form that only seemed to shrink; it was like holding a paper doll, weak and thin and just asking to be torn in two. His skin was as soft as ivory, as limbs of child's-bone china, and Sebastian ran his hands along every inch, the jut of his hips and the hollow of his spine, lost in the electric sparks of skin-on-skin contact.

He was white as the sheets beneath him, concerningly pale to start off with and paler now, sucked bloodless by nerves, and it made the yellow-black smears dotting his skin all the more plain. By now, they were faded and ugly, bruises on a ripe peach. And none of them were Sebastian’s mark—even those from the stones had been inflicted at a distance, no intimacy or ownership in them at all.

Ah. And that was an idea. Bruises were, after all, easy enough to overwrite.

Sebastian dipped his head down to the small of Ciel’s back, nosed along the length of his spine. The sweet thing was quivering, reeking of salt and distress, and when Sebastian licked into the base of Ciel’s ribcage, he tasted like need.

Ciel screeched, and a coil in him must've snapped under the hot lave of Sebastian’s tongue, because he jerked up, thrashing an arm back in a clumsy, useless attempt to push Sebastian away. “Sebastian, _demon,_ stop it, this _isn’t what I_ —”

Sebastian bit down.

He carved his teeth deep into the meat left of Ciel’s spine, which gave way soft and yielding to a bubbling of blood. The shrill noise Ciel made was loud enough it risked waking the servants, and Sebastian considered chiding him for it, just to see the way he’d flush and bury his face in his pillow—but that was hardly necessary, when he seemed entirely, mortifyingly aware of it on his own. Sebastian laughed low against Ciel’s back, a velvet bass thump that sounded more like the rumble of a million shadows than anything human, and licked into the wound.

Ciel’s blood on Sebastian’s tongue was dizzying, all the flavors of his soul tempered by the hot copper physicality of biting into flesh. Sebastian had always enjoyed tearing into humans—there was no reason for it, no need to leave the body mangled and broken to reach the soul within, which could be coaxed out in its purest form with as little as a kiss, aside from the sheer pleasure of raw, bloody destruction and the anticipatory sweetness of dilution. And _Ciel’s_ blood—oh, it drove Sebastian mad; he could feel his grasp on human form slipping, a slow regression back to the shapelessness of pure hunger.

Ciel was mewling pathetically into the pillow, soft, hitching gasps and whines. The hand he’d intended to push Sebastian away with was tangled limp and useless in Sebastian’s hair, clenching tightly when Sebastian bit a second mark just a little above the first one. His breath was a shuddering rattle, little feet digging uselessly into Sebastian’s torso, and against him Sebastian could feel those toes curl. Sebastian drank deeply of his sweat and blood and pain, and Ciel’s hips juddered into the mattress.

Oh. Oh, now _this_ was an interesting development.

With effort, Sebastian withdrew, licked the remaining drops of blood from his lips and pulled himself back into something resembling human form. Ciel whimpered, clutching at his hair, and Sebastian ran a soothing hand over his bicep. He was shaking and feverish, a slick sheen of sweat on his skin, breath so rough Sebastian half-worried he’d work himself into another attack. His face was buried in the pillow, but Sebastian could imagine very well on his own the blown-wide pupils; the parted, spit-wet, pink lips.

Sebastian’s thumb settled into the groove of Ciel’s shoulder joint, and pressed down.

Ciel flailed, grip tightening, and Sebastian dug deeper. Felt blood vessels burst under his touch, spreading a purple starburst stain over Ciel’s skin, squished over nerves until they spasmed and Ciel’s arm dropped stiff and useless to his side. And this was nothing—Sebastian could have extended his claws and punctured the skin like it was wet paper, torn through muscle and tendon and fascia. He could have rent the joint from its socket entirely, with just one harsh pull. 

Ciel’s whimpers had tapered off to harsh breathing, his jaw hung slack and his eyes gone to glass marbles. His fingers twitched. He was limp in Sebastian’s grip, a vacant, pliant doll, save the roll of his hips, stiff and jerky and unending, into silk sheets.

Well, well. Who ever could have guessed his little master would end up a masochist?

Sebastian released his grip and Ciel gasped like a fish out of water, his arm flopping back to the bed. Awareness came gleaming back to his eyes, as did a shimmer of tears—the absence of pain broke him far more thoroughly than any bite of nail or tooth, and within a minute he was trembling all over, muffling great, shaking sobs into the pillow. Sebastian’s fingers probed along the dark blemish forming over his shoulder, gentle as feathers. Ciel moaned, kitten-weak, caught somewhere between pushing into it and squirming away.

His hips lifted a fraction, and Sebastian saw it—the aching evidence of his arousal, small and hard and desperate and dripping. Wet smears of need staining the sheets, from when he’d ground into them like a bitch in heat. Sebastian had honestly never put much thought into Ciel’s sexuality, the boy too young and too damaged for it to matter. Certainly, lust added a spice to any soul, but Ciel’s contained far more interesting flavors for Sebastian to cultivate, and introducing such a thing carelessly would only have left his meal ruined. And yet, all Sebastian had to do was offer a bit of judiciously applied pain, and Ciel was writhing with a desire Sebastian doubted he even fully understood.

Ah, this rather changed the game, didn’t it?

Demons weren’t sexual creatures, by a human mode of thinking. They _could_ be, when they so wished, but there was no physical drive and no need for them to reproduce. They were fluid, formless things of mimicry, with little consistency in the physical world, whatever tangible needs and capabilities they had ones they’d chosen to give themselves in their effort at verisimilitude. They were _simple_ things, of an all-encompassing hunger no human could hope to understand. Their only true satisfaction laid in the realm of souls, and the pleasure Sebastian would find in fucking the boy would be much the same as that of tearing him apart.

Which was itself a pleasure indeed. To touch Ciel’s soul, through sex or violence, to light it up with pleasure and pain— _that_ was a drive entirely beyond humanity’s mindless rutting, and one Sebastian planned on indulging to the fullest.

In a motion, Sebastian placed his hand at the edge of Ciel’s scapula and pressed down, until Ciel jerked and sobbed, dropping back to the bed in a quivering heap. Shifted up and settled on top of Ciel’s thin hips—careful not to bear down even a fraction of his weight, since the sad little thing would probably be crushed to powder.

Sebastian studied his canvas. A flat expanse of pale skin to work with, sharp little shoulders and a sweat-slicked neck. Old bruises and new ones. The two marks at the center of his spine, weeping trails of crimson.

Reclamation, his young master had wanted? A brand in his back to burn out the old one, and bring him back anew?

With obscene pleasure, Sebastian bit down.

This time, it was into the meat of his shoulder, the soft flesh near his neck, and blood bubbled into Sebastian’s mouth all the more freely, as sharp and sinful as before. The noise Ciel made then couldn’t have been mistaken as anything but a moan, broken and needy, and he squirmed under Sebastian, trying to get the traction to rock his hips into the bed, and with a low hum of inhuman pleasure Sebastian rocked _back._

The rush of it was _rapturous,_ Ciel’s soul mixed with copper on his tongue and the easy gratification of his constructed form, and oh _,_ the way Ciel jerked and whimpered as he _finally_ put together what was happening, the sweet shot of horror and humiliation and need into Sebastian’s mouth. Sebastian’s taste for the carnal senses of his human form might have been limited, true, but there was a simple, novel sort of enjoyment to be gained from them—and when applied correctly, with care to his partner’s reactions and the lightshow of feeling within them, on a soul as tantalizing as his young master’s, the result was _symphonic._

And so Sebastian tore into him. Bit bloody marks into his back and pressed harsh fingers into his shoulders, ground their hips together and licked up every dazzling diamond drip of his soul. Shadows swirled and thickened with Sebastian’s hunger, seemed to swallow Ciel whole as he painted his skin with scarlet stars. A pleasant madness, an ecstatic gluttony, and _oh,_ if he wasn’t coming apart at the seams, chained to humanity only by the spider silk threads of the contract, and the distant euphoria of rutting into Ciel’s hips.

Under him, Ciel writhed, fingers curled to claws in the sheets and every breath a rough gasp. He was trapped under Sebastian, pinned and fluttering like a butterfly, unable to move enough to get the friction he craved—though it hardly mattered, when Sebastian was rolling into him, dragging his body along at the pace Sebastian set. Overwhelmed tears streamed down his face, and at some point he’d found his words well enough to start chanting whispered, broken fragments of Sebastian’s name, so soft Sebastian wouldn’t have heard it were he human, but to his demonic senses they were thunderous—a steady, thumping, screaming heartbeat thudding between them, lighting fireworks in Ciel’s soul and sending electricity through the threads of their contract.

Sebastian pulled back, and a long drip of blood followed, hanging from his lip like a line of spittle before spattering back down onto Ciel’s skin. Had Ciel looked, what he saw would’ve been more living shadow than his butler’s face, with a million eyes burning as hot as embers in the dark. An animal, and a monster, and the flame-filled night sky.

Ciel wasn’t looking, though, breathing hard into his pillow, his whole body shaking under Sebastian’s. Every inch of his skin was awash with a slick shimmer, his body feverish with the glow of his soul. Strung out and shivering, gasping through his moment’s respite. His back was a map of bloody marks, with ribbons of crimson smeared between weeping wounds.

Gently, Sebastian pushed away the hair matted to his nape and bent down to lick the sweat pooling in its hollow. Ciel moaned, soft and pleading.

This time, when Sebastian bit down, it was with _all_ his teeth.

He cleaved into Ciel’s nape like it was made of hot wax, carving deep with a set of black fangs that no earthly animal shared. Rent open delicate flesh and sucked the blood that spilled out in hot rivulets. Pressed a tongue too long and flexible to be human between the folds of ripped skin and reveled in Ciel’s resounding internal pulse.

And just like that, Ciel spent, shaking against the sheets and singing like a strangled bird. Brought to climax by a little friction and the teeth of a demon. With it, whatever energy Ciel had seemed to drain away, his body going limp as liquid, lying like a marionette cut from its strings. Sebastian loosed his teeth, but didn’t stop taking long, fierce pulls of the boy’s blood, hard enough to leave one’s toes numb, until Ciel was whimpering pathetically and brokenly chanting something that could, was one feeling charitable, be interpreted as, “ _Stop, Sebastian._ ”

It took all of Sebastian’s power to draw back, to return the scattered pieces of himself to their mimesis of humanity. Under him, Ciel laid limp and exhausted and sniffling, face pressed deep into the pillow and eyes screwed shut. Perhaps he knew that were he look up, the thing he’d see drunk on the draught of his soul would haunt his nightmares for a lifetime. Perhaps he was simply tired.

As he pieced himself together, Sebastian licked the remaining dribbles of blood from Ciel’s back, the boy’s soft mewling and lingering taste coaxing him back to some semblance of coherency. He was sure that his eyes still glowed red, and his teeth resembled the canines of a dog, and shadows gathered around him like a murder of crows, but he’d appear human from a distance, and for the moment that would have to be good enough.

Sebastian lifted himself up from the bed, and— _ah._ He’d climaxed himself at some point, apparently, though he hadn’t noticed through his euphoric haze of hunger. It must’ve been pleasurable, he supposed, at least for the human shape he inhabited, but its significance faded in comparison to the ecstasy of tasting the soul that still gleamed on the bed like a sky full of stars. Perhaps it might’ve been interesting to see how Ciel reacted to the knowledge, but if Sebastian pushed Ciel any further tonight, why, the poor thing might just break.

He retrieved his gloves and coat, making a mental note to change entirely whenever he left this room, and crossed over to the bathroom. He came back with a wet cloth and a vial of disinfectant.

Ciel had pushed himself up to his knees, still but for a slight tremble in his shoulders. “Young master,” Sebastian murmured, “I believe we’re done here. If you’d allow me to clean the wounds—”

“ _No,_ ” Ciel bit out, wild as a rabid dog, before sucking in a shaking breath and composing himself. “Leave them, Sebastian. The whole point was to injure me, it would be self-defeating to treat them right away.”

“We’ve discussed the mortal propensity for infection before, my lord,” Sebastian sighed. “And as I recall, you stipulated that nothing I did was to kill or cripple you. An infection will do both those things quite swiftly, so if you would.”

Ciel huffed—he managed to sound remarkably annoyed, for how thick his voice was with tears. “Fine.”

Sebastian sat on the edge of the bed and began gently washing the blood from Ciel’s back. It wasn’t so bad, really—for all his hunger, Sebastian knew how to restrain himself, and he _had_ been given an order not to go too far. Each bite was painful and ugly, certainly—at least to human sensibilities—but they’d heal swiftly and not scar. Save the red mess at the nape of his neck, of course— _that_ would scar quite beautifully, turn to a faint white starburst barely hidden by his hair. In the meantime, Sebastian would simply have to watch closely to ensure it healed cleanly.

Ciel hissed and whimpered as Sebastian scrubbed water into the wounds and dabbed each one with a splash from the vial’s dropper, too exhausted to affect his his usual doll-faced facade. When Sebastian stood up, setting the vial and cloth down by the washbasin, he gasped an audible sigh of relief.

Sebastian retrieved his nightshirt and gently maneuvred him into it, the boy too shell-shocked to even get his arms through the holes himself. This was a sort of pliancy Sebastian could tolerate, though, well-earned and cut through with cracks. 

By the time Sebastian pushed in the last button, Ciel’s eyes were open again, the right glowing softly in the dark. “Shall I stay until you fall asleep, young master?”

“No,” Ciel choked roughly, turning his chin up—and if that wasn’t sweet, the way his young master tried to perform dignity even exhausted and streaked with tears. “Just _go,_ Sebastian.”

“Very well, young master.” He brushed back Ciel’s hair as he stood, his thumb lingering on the apple of his cheek—obscene intimacy, far too close for master and servant, for demon and prey. “Though I do have one question.”

Ciel looked up at him, so little energy left he didn’t even tense up. “Ask it, then.”

“You ordered that I mark you as a form of self-reclamation—I believe the exact words you used were _make my body feel like mine again._ ” Sebastian raised a sardonic brow. “And yet, for all intents and purposes, is it not a mark of my ownership over you that I bit into your skin?”

“Maybe,” Ciel whispered. Quiet, not out of shame, just exhaustion. “It doesn’t matter. Either way, I prefer belonging to you than to any human. Belonging to you gives me _power._ ”

And there it was. An admission Sebastian never would have torn from Ciel under normal circumstances, proud little thing that he was, but like this, bloodied and exhausted and— _heh_ —fucked out, he didn’t have the energy left for anything but the truth. Such a rare treat, that was.

Ciel turned his back to Sebastian, snuggling into the pillows and pulling up the duvet. “Besides, until I get my revenge, all your _ownership_ amounts to is being my servant, which is an arrangement I can live with. Does that satisfy your curiosity, Sebastian?”

Sebastian grinned. He truly had ended up in the employ of such an outrageously wicked brat.

“Yes, my lord, I believe it does.”

“Then go.”

And Sebastian did, silent as a shadow.

~~

Ciel was in his dressing room when Sebastian rolled in the tray with his breakfast.

He was parked in front of his vanity mirror, back turned to it, his undone nightshirt fallen around his elbows as he strained to glimpse over his shoulder. His stare was intent, more than it had been on anything since they’d left Baron Kelvin’s manor. Utterly entranced by the patchwork of bruises spread out over his back.

Eventually, he shifted to get another angle, jumping when his eye caught Sebastian hovering in the doorway. “My lord,” Sebastian murmured.

“Mm. Sebastian.” And Ciel’s gaze returned to the mirror and the marks on his back.

“Breakfast is by your bed.” Sebastian glided from the doorway and towards the wardrobe, throwing it open and beginning to sort through Ciel’s clothes with swift precision, the same way he would to choose Ciel’s outfit any morning. Ciel didn’t track his movements, attention focused entirely on his reflection. “I do hope your being up this early isn’t due to having been unable to fall asleep. You cannot afford to be listless with guests to entertain. I believe Lady Elizabeth still has her heart set on going boating.”

“No, I—” Ciel stopped, licked his lips. “I slept quite well, actually. Whatever that means for me.”

“And you’re in your dressing room at this hour because…”

Ciel shook his head. “I just wanted to look.” 

And what a novelty _that_ was. Ciel _loathed_ looking at himself—it was why the only mirror in his dressing room was the one on the vanity, and even that was positioned so that Ciel would not have to look into it accidentally. Some of it, Sebastian knew, was his brother—of course it would not be himself he saw reflected, when he’d shared his face with another since birth. When he’d stolen their entire life.

But beyond that there was just a simple, bitter loathing for his own skin, that Sebastian grasped but could not understand. It centered on the brand, naturally—and even now, Sebastian could see how Ciel tried not to look at it, to keep his eyes high—but spidered into the rest of him like a network of poison-pumping veins. Ciel hated his body, and Sebastian didn’t need to read his mind to know it, when the looks he casted at his reflection said more than enough.

There was none of that in his face now, though. Just… a curious distance. That furrow between his brows, the one that meant he didn’t know what move to make next.

“Are they hurting you, young master?”

“No.” Ciel shook his head. “Yes. Nothing I didn’t ask for.”

Sebastian laid out the last item of clothing, looked up. “Then the service performed was to your satisfaction?”

“Yes.” Ciel exhaled shakily. “Yes.”

He was still standing on his toes, stretched awkwardly around in an attempt to catch himself in the mirror. If he noticed Sebastian staring, he didn’t care. His fingers edged along his shoulder, barely skating over the pinkened corona of one bite mark. 

“There’s a pattern to them.” Abruptly, Ciel turned, looking at Sebastian expectantly. “Isn’t there, Sebastian?”

Ah, he’d hoped his little lord would catch on. “Yes, can’t you tell? A—”

“Constellation,” Ciel finished. His gaze wandered back to the mirror. “I see that. Which one is it?”

“Did I not already teach you the stars, young master? Don’t tell me your retention has been that poor.”

Ciel glared at Sebastian through the mirror, which was a bit impressive for how he had twisted himself into a knot. “I know the constellations, demon. It’s just hard to see when it’s on my _back._ ”

Sebastian chuckled and strode over, gently taking Ciel’s shoulders and nudging him into a marginally more reasonable position. To make up the difference, he pushed Ciel’s head back a little further and slid his fingers over the first of the marks, a faint reddened thing on his shoulder. “It’s Phoenix, young master. Look.” And he slipped his hand down, moved it to each dark, bitten bruise in turn. Traced the arc of points over his shoulders, up the wings furling out onto either bicep, and down to the twin marks at the center of his spine. And then up again, to the scabbing, deep purple swell on his nape—the Ankaa of Sebastian’s bitten Phoenix.

“Oh,” Ciel breathed. His eyes were far away, even as they tracked the motion of Sebastian’s hand. “Why… why Phoenix, of all constellations? It can’t even be seen in England.”

With a grin like a predator, Sebastian pressed down, and Ciel’s questions tapered off into birdsong. “You’re familiar with the mythology of the phoenix, are you not?” He pushed harder, the gloved tip of his thumb digging at the scabs, until Ciel squirmed weakly in his grip and tried to tilt his head—whether he meant to move away or closer was anyone’s guess. “The legendary bird that burns itself in its own fires every 500 years, before rising new from the ashes.” A thin gasp, melodious as music, as the scabs popped away, and Ciel’s gleaming magic eyes met Sebastian’s in the mirror. “It never dies, you see? No matter how many times it is killed, it burns anew by morning light. It always comes _back._ ”

Violently, Ciel twitched in Sebastian’s grip, shuddering like he’d been shot through with electricity, hand darting out to clutch Sebastian’s coat as if he ever had to worry about his demon letting him fall. His blank eyes rolled upwards, a hazy, unfocused stare with pupils that devoured iris—and _oh,_ if that wasn’t a delicious sight, his young master dazed and breathless and dizzy, Sebastian’s gleaming brand of ownership staring up at him with want. Blood oozed out around Sebastian’s thumb, a thin trickle, dotting the fabric of his glove with screaming crimson. A spreading stain, as Ciel’s eyes slid shut, and he gasped without sounding like he meant it at all, “ _Stop that._ ”

Obediently, Sebastian pulled away. “My apologies, young master. How careless of me.”

Ciel panted softly, and Sebastian was polite enough to not to comment on how heavily he was leaning on him for support. “It’s fine,” he whispered, voice a thin, distant thread.

Ciel disentangled himself from Sebastian, swaying unsteadily as he turned back to the mirror. Gently edged his fingers over Ankaa, mapping its discolored swell. Pressed index and middle to either side of it, until he hissed in pain and a dribble of blood slid down his spine. 

Ciel drew his arm back, shaking, and stared at the spots of blood on his fingers. “Rising up from the ashes, huh.”

“Indeed, young master. No matter how many times the Phoenix burns out,” Sebastian smiled into the mirror, and didn’t hide the hunger in his glowing eyes, “it always comes back for more.”

**Author's Note:**

> and now lets all just take a second to imagine ciel on a boat with lizzie and soma, trying to ignore all the fresh bites and bruises under his clothes
> 
> You can find me on Twitter @sapphxrror. Comments are deeply appreciated <3


End file.
